Students Conduct Successful Static Fire Test of a New Rocket Engine in Preparation for P: "Following the recent launch of their 1000 lbf thrust ablative annular aerospike engine onboard Prospector-2 two months earlier, the CALVEIN team accomplished yet another milestone with the successful second flight of a liquid-propellant aerospike engine on Sunday, Dec. 7. This flight applied lessons-learned from the previous one to fully demonstrate the performance of the liquid propellant, ablative aerospike engine.....
.....The aerospike engine suffered none of the sub-optimal performance observed during the first flight (Sept. 21) thanks to a small modification made to the outer ring prior to laying up the ablative material. The aerospike engine demonstrated a clean burn-to-propellant-depletion and both the payload deployment and single-parachute recovery systems appeared to have functioned nominally.
Due to the wind and small launch rail inclination (4 deg. from vertical), the vehicle weather-vaned upon leaving the 57-ft launch rail before then entering a straight, stable trajectory in the direction towards the Koehn dry lake bed reaching an altitude greater than 4000 ft. The P4 then returned to the ground under full parachute, with all systems still functional."
.....The aerospike engine suffered none of the sub-optimal performance observed during the first flight (Sept. 21) thanks to a small modification made to the outer ring prior to laying up the ablative material. The aerospike engine demonstrated a clean burn-to-propellant-depletion and both the payload deployment and single-parachute recovery systems appeared to have functioned nominally.
Due to the wind and small launch rail inclination (4 deg. from vertical), the vehicle weather-vaned upon leaving the 57-ft launch rail before then entering a straight, stable trajectory in the direction towards the Koehn dry lake bed reaching an altitude greater than 4000 ft. The P4 then returned to the ground under full parachute, with all systems still functional."
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